People Are Having Sex in a Box on National Television

WE tv, home to quality programming like Marriage Boot Camp: Bridezillas and Kendra on Top, has finally found a way to distinguish itself. Come 2015, viewers will be able to channel-surf their way over to the reality show Sex Box. And yes, the show is exactly what it sounds like: People having sex. In a box. On television.

The network is now officially the purveyor of the lowest thing to happen to reality television since someone gave Sarah Palin her own show.

Sex Box, according to WE tv's announcement last Thursday, is actually not the first of its kind. Britain aired a version of the show last fall (which did quite well we might add) and it was pretty much as gross as you'd expect.

The premise: Couples enter a big box, a sex box (surely the innuendo was intentional), and then do it. Then, after having had intercourse, in a huge box, on television — we feel we cannot state the mechanics of this enough — they come on out, postcoital glow and sweat still flush across their brows, and talk about the box sex they just had, with a panel of "experts." In the British version, sex columnist Dan Savage was one of those experts. We expect our box sex pros will more likely include, say, a losing contestant from Rock of Love with Bret Michaels. The Brits always do it better.

Remember when the drunk antics of the Real World kids seemed scandalous? Or when the drunk antics of the overly tanned women of the Housewives franchise seemed racy? The concept of Sex Box is so basely repugnant it makes both shows seem positively quaint.

We shouldn't be all that surprised that it's come to this. After all, we live in a time when a reality show on which complete strangers go on dates with their genitals exposed is no big deal. We live in a time when a reality show on which women vie for the affections of some random dude who may or may not be pretending to be Prince Harry is an actual thing that existed. It all sort of makes you nostalgic for the days when watching Paris Hilton dance on a table was the height of trash TV.

WE tv is defending Sex Box, with president Marc Juris saying, according to the Hollywood Reporter,"Sex Box is one of the most unique and compelling show concepts we've ever seen, and we can't wait to bring it to WE tv." He continued, "Our featured couples will get a once-in-a-lifetime experience, while our viewers will get the kind of bold, break-through-the-clutter programming they increasingly associate with WE tv."

Bold this may be, but break-through-the-clutter? Hardly. On the premiere of the British version of the series, the show defended the series saying they were attempting to approach sex from a modern perspective of sex that's not pornography and that applies to all iterations of sexuality: "We're going to try and answer some big questions." Sure. Sure they are.

It's also presumably about heralding in the End Times. See you all in hell. Also known as Sex Box.

Writer, editor, and person from New York, living in Boston. Currently Deputy Managing Editor of the Improper Bostonian magazine, formerly of Metro Boston and the Boston Phoenix. Beats include, but are not limited to, horror movies, music, TV, and mildly-to-overtly snarky pop culture commentary. Trying to get better at Twitter: @AlexCavallo14
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